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Rapid transit to the southeast, long touted as the next major project for Calgary, has been ranked last in a new city study of future transit expansions.

Transit planners’ cost-benefit analysis of seven new special lines included ones down Centre Street, to the deep southwest and a couple cross-town “bus rapid transit” routes. The southeast transitway, along the future LRT corridor, ties for sixth-best with a loop route to the University of Calgary and nearby hospitals.

For residents in the transit-starved quadrant who were miffed the west LRT went ahead before a southeast LRT, it’s a worrisome finding that knocks them further down the transit priority list when construction dollars come up next.

“It scares the hell out of me,” said Shifra DiBattista, who lives in Douglasdale and is a past president of its community association.

“It’s becoming a parking lot, the Deerfoot. And this is going to exacerbate the problem.”

The dismal cost-benefit scoring for the southeast transit project has less to do with the benefits of rapid buses for cutting travel times, supporting high-density redevelopment and serving would-be motorists — it’s the costs that are killer.

It will cost $642 million to create a special roadway across the Bow River, an irrigation canal, train lines and Deerfoot Trail, en route to Quarry Park and Douglasglen. That’s more than five times pricier than a busway up Centre Street and six times higher than one down 17th Avenue S.E., since both use existing roadways. Bus-only lanes to the congested area south of Glenmore Reservoir would run $40 million.

This new study is designed to help give council a pecking order among various transit projects to plan and develop once new money comes in.

Some could arrive next month, if council chooses to use the $52 million in tax vacated by the province for transit rather than giving it back or use it elsewhere. A renewed federal Building Canada Fund could also bring Calgary some new transit spending money.

The cost-benefit analysis weighed costs, future ridership, transit times, redevelopment potential and the potential for greenhouse emission cuts, as well as considering the number of youth, seniors and low-income residents in the area.

Ald. Shane Keating, who has fought bitterly to keep the “SETway” atop the priority list, has long criticized planners for putting up numbers that downplay prospects for his ward’s transit project.

“It’s the same old story. We can change things, however, we want to not make the southeast go ahead,” Keating told the Herald. “Depends on what they actually did and what they compared.

Despite the findings, the Ward 12 alderman is still confident the busway to Douglasglen will get built first.

“What is the most desperate need at this time and how are we going to be somewhat equitable? In the long run, I think the SETway is going to run ahead.”

DiBattista is less hopeful. “They’re just going to go with what’s more affordable.”

Other aldermen, including those along the Centre Street route, have urged that the city’s numbers dictate the next project, rather than politics. The cost-benefit analysis puts that northern route first, largely because of its huge ridership, population density and relatively lower cost.

While Douglasdale, Douglasglen and the developing neighbourhoods of Quarry Park have transit-ready job and resident densities — as do McKenzie Towne and the neighbourhoods closer the south hospital — it will be a more sparse trip from there to downtown, cutting through large industrial areas en route and only four other communities.

On the positive side, the southeast transitway would cut 13 minutes off commutes — more than any other route — and is second-best for redevelopment opportunities.

The southwest transitway, which runs along Crowchild and 14th Street S.W., ranks second in the analysis. It’s been touted as a way to offset mass congestion in an area that’s long awaited the southwest leg of the ring road.

The southwest bottleneck needs a solution, said Cec Jahrig, president of the Woodcreek Community Association. But he said residents haven’t expected this transit fix to come anytime soon.

“There hasn’t been a lot of discussion that I know of about when we are gong to get it,”

“It’s surprising to me southeast is last, because it’s been talked about so long.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi touted the southeast LRT as a priority after getting elected three years ago. But without money to start the $2.7-billion line, he’s pared back his promises, touting instead a clear priority list for all the city’s bus and rail expansions, and a “green line” approach that could see the southeast and north-central routes developed as a single line.

DiBattista said she stepped down as community president out of frustration with the slow pace of city action for the southeast’s transportation needs. She worries her part of the city will become less desirable if it keeps growing rapidly without the city creating better ways to get around.

“They need to give us a carrot. They need to give us something ... no matter what the numbers say,” DiBattista said.

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